2011 was a wonderful year for me professionally and personally. My husband and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary, our three now-7-year-olds went into first grade and their reading (reading!) skills skyrocketed, and my book Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies was published, with two other book contracts coming my way in the last days […]

I woke up this morning to a six-year-old boy snuggling in under the comforter with me. “I like the sound of the little birdies in the morning, Mommy. They remind me of you.” Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Taking care of the business of being in business is a full-time business in itself. My husband last night: “What you need is an assistant.” Hear that, Santa? But this post isn’t about summoning the magic of the man in red. It’s a public proclamation of my thankfulness for having a lot of business to […]

I’m proud to report that in the San Diego Union-Tribune’s “Recommended Reads,”  Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies was called “Fun, insightful and tremendously helpful.” Yay! Three verbs I was absolutely aiming for when I wrote WYAFFD. Thank you, U-T!    

The man writes poetry. He writes plays. He writes short stories and novels. He writes for grown-ups and he writes for kids. And he’s got the awards on the wall to confirm what his readers already knew:  Gary Soto is an entertaining, insightful, and amazingly versatile writer. He understands what it means to find just […]

A friend called me “workaholic” last weekend for declining a night on the town in favor of staying home to write in a rare quiet house. I don’t know about that. A pile of See’s chocolate at my left elbow, a bowl of buttered popcorn at my right, and a novel-in-progress on the computer screen […]

Thank you to the wonderful staff of San Diego County Library Book Festival 2011 — librarians JoAnn Jonas and Rheanna Corirossi, and Yellow Book Road owner Ann — and my good friends Randy Morrison and Heidi Yuen. I had a great time!

I’ve learned over the past few years that when I have a question about copyright or other literary law issues, Randy Morrison has the answer. Randy is a nationally recognized authority on the “intersection of First Amendment and zoning law” as well as literary law issues. So when a DearEditor.com reader sent me a question […]